The staff-room gazette
Tales from the shift. Anonymous, dry, and still raining.
Edinburgh·Wee Shift
Edinburgh tenement. Fourth floor. No lift. The parcel is a full-length mirror. The close smells of damp and Sunday dinner. I try the buzzer. The buzzer has opinions. A voice says leave it in the close. The close is a wind tunnel. I carry the mirror up. Every landing has a bike. The mirror shows me a man who should have used the stairs more. At the door there is a note: neighbour has the key. There is no neighbour. There is a cat. The cat does not have the key. I take the photo against the landing wall. My own face is in the glass. I crop it. Names changed. There is dreich. There is no lift on the way down either.
Continue readingBirmingham·On The Tills
Birmingham. Back of shop. Six green crates stacked like a dare. The online order is one bag of potatoes, a pint of milk, and a card that says Sorry You’re Leaving. The house is not leaving. The potatoes have gone under the cage. Night manager says if it is not on the label it is not our problem. The label says potatoes. Under the cage is still potatoes. I fetch them. I am thanked by nobody. The card is already in the wrong crate. Someone in Erdington is getting Sorry You’re Leaving and no milk. Someone in Kings Heath is getting two milks and a future. I clock out. The kettle has been stolen again.
Continue readingManchester·From The Van
Manchester. It is raining in the way that does not count as weather anymore. I ring the bell. A man opens in a bathrobe that has seen better centuries. He signs with a finger on the rain-wet screen. The screen refuses. He tries again. The bathrobe is not tied. I look at the parcel. I look at the sky. I look at a point that is neither. He says you are soaked pal. I say it is in the job spec. It is not in the job spec. He offers a tea. I have forty-two drops left. I take the tea. It is builder’s and perfect. I leave with the empty cup because there is nowhere to put it. The cup lives in the door of the van now. It is the most honest thing I own.
Continue readingGlasgow·Wee Shift
Glasgow. A close in Partick. The buzzer is dead. On the glass a bit of torn paper, biro, capitals: SHOUT UP. I shout up. My voice goes into the tenement and does not come back. I shout up again. A window opens on the third. A woman says aye? I say parcel. She says chuck it. I do not chuck it. It is a printer. I say I will bring it. The close is dark and the stone is wet. Third floor. She has the kettle on. She does not offer. She signs the rain. She says you should have chucked it. I say it was a printer. She says even so. I go back down. The note is still there. SHOUT UP. I do not add a PS.
Continue readingSections
Sixty percent England. Forty percent Scotland. Sunday is only Wee Shift.
Sunday edition · Wee Shift
Scotland gets its own Sunday.
Tenements, closes, CalMac, midges, dreich. Wee words where they belong. No kilt. No pastiche.
Open Wee Shift